Reckoning
by kouri
Summary: Leaving isn't easy on the one who leaves and the one who will be left behind. [RenoTifa]


Disclaimer: If I actually owned FFVII why on earth would I be writing _fan_fiction?

A/N: I didn't expect to write another Reno/Tifa piece this quickly (especially considering that my exams are just a week away – and I haven't really studied for anything!) and it practically oozes angst, so don't say I didn't warn you. This follows along the same vein as _Breathe_, but happens sometime pre-game. If there are people reading this who haven't read _Breathe_ yet, I'd recommend that you go and read that first before you read this piece, although it's not absolutely necessary. It's just that _Breathe_ is the basis for this piece as well. I'm working backwards, to form some kind of weirdo (dare I say whacked out?) timeline to say the least. Also, I apologise in advance if both Tifa and Reno seem rather OOC; it's no thanks to my character tweaking grins. Oh, and, rated R for a very light (kinda blink and you'll miss it) sex scene. Otherwise, enjoy.

_**Reckoning**_  
_Or, alternatively, Tough Love._

This is the second time she has tried to walk away from him, to walk a different path from which he walks on. It's too painful to continue like this and she can't stay, not while he's working for the very enemy that cut her down and burnt her hometown to ashes. And that very same enemy is now taking him away from her as well. She wants to walk away while she still can, while she still loves him enough not to hate him for being a part of Shinra.

It is the second time he will stop her again.

"Don't walk away from me. Not like this." His long, thin fingers encircle her wrist in a firm grip.

She closes her eyes against the feel of his hand on hers; the familiarity and sensation and heartfelt warmth she can hear all too clearly in his voice and she's afraid to look back into those oh-so-blue eyes because she knows if she does then she'll never be able to leave (_Just like before_, her mind reminds her).

"Let _us_ go, Reno." Her voice is low (not threatening, oh no) and resolved; a tone that he's heard a few times before and he knows that it's her no-nonsense voice which means that she won't back down no matter what. He knows this well, and there hasn't been one time where he's succeeded in getting past that voice – _has anyone, really?_ – but it doesn't stop him from trying. He would never let her go that easily, not without prying all her little reasons away and cutting them down to pieces one sentence at a time. His mind registers that she hasn't referred just to him letting her go, but she wants him to let _them_ – their relationship, their history, their everything – go.

"You can't seriously mean that, Tifa." His voice is dark and she can just _barely_ hear the sharp edge of his veiled desperation. They never could hide anything well from each other and it's come to this final – she hopes she never sees him again, gods, please, never again – encounter and he's not letting go. The grip on her wrist has gotten slightly more restrictive.

_Getoutgetoutgetout_ her mind chants a mantra even as she relents and turns to meet those electric blue eyes – _just this one last time_ – and a bitter smile twists her lips. He wants so badly to wipe it off her face; that expression doesn't belong there on that tender laughing face he's so fond of. Her words cut him deep.

"I always mean what I say. Or do you not know me well enough, _Re_?" The way she's twisting her nickname for him like _that_ makes his temper flare slightly. He knows that she's doing this deliberately to make him fly off the handle, but he won't fall for that so easily. She's being deliberately cruel and it's the first time he's ever seen her like this; it scares him because she's acting just like how _he_ acts and he never once thought how frightening it would be to see her acting like him.

"Don't do this to me Tifa." He's pleading now – and he's never begged anyone for anything before, not him, never, but he's begging because it's _her_ and he'd do anything for her – and he hates how desperate his voice sounds; she has always been his weakness.

"We're through, Re." Her voice sounds hollow even to her and she feels something inside of her die. How did it come to this? The name 'Shinra' lies between them like a stinking, festering corpse and drives them apart.

His eyes reflect spectres of loneliness and she turns her head away to stop seeing the pain that she's causing. _Hypocrite_, her mind whispers, and leaves a sour taste in her mouth.

"Why?" His voice is strangled and the word barely leaves his lips, but she hears him oh-so-loudly. The world is crashing down around his ears and he can't put the pieces back together quickly enough.

"_I just can't, Re!_" She scares herself with her outburst, and gods, are those tears that are streaming down her cheeks? They can't be. She should be miles away from here by now; she isn't really standing here right now in the desperate embrace he's wrapped her in; she isn't really desperately clinging onto the front of his shirt as his fingers dig deep into the flesh of her shoulder; his face isn't really buried into the depths of her chocolate melted hair and he isn't really kissing her tears away as he whispers the words "_Don'tgodon'tgodon'tgo_" like some feverous monk chanting.

They can't really be stumbling back on the – _their_ – unmade bed; he can't be kissing that secret spot right _there_ on her neck and her hands can't be feverishly unbuttoning his shirt and feeling those muscles under his skin; she can't really be crying out into the confines of his mouth as he thrusts in and out of her again and again; they can't really be here breathing heavily together after spiralling down simultaneous rollercoaster ride orgasms. She's not really listening to his heart beat and his arm isn't really curled around her body to rest a hand on her hip. They're not really falling asleep and her eyes aren't really closing.

She doesn't really hear him whisper in that haunted voice just before she drifts off to the cool darkness behind her eyes.

"Please don't ever leave me, Tifa."

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

She opens her eyes to a darkened room. She can see that the lights on the street are brighter than usual, signalling that night has fallen above the Plate. Glancing up to his face and its unguarded expression tells her that he's still fast asleep; he always did sleep a lot deeper when she was around. Shifting around in bed and disentangling his arm from around her waist proves to be a difficult task, and there is an instance in which she freezes when he whispers her name softly, thinking that he's woken up. After being a statue for five minutes in which he makes no other movement, she allows herself an inner sigh of guilty relief and moves off the bed.

She slips into her clothes as quickly and as soundlessly as possible, looking over at him every few moments – _not because she'll never ever see him again, oh no_ – to ensure that he hasn't woken up.

The moment of reckoning comes as she steps up closer to the bed – _one last memory together_ – and looks upon his face, illuminated a ghostly white in the glow of the streetlights that filter in from the window. His hair is a stark contrast; light and shadows have painted it a dark burgundy. She wants to reach out to touch his skin but stops herself from doing so; one too many times has she surrendered to his touch. She can stay here no longer and turns her back on him.

"_Forgive me_." She breathes, before stepping out of the door of their shared apartment, stepping completely out of his life.

She does not know that he is completely awake.

He watches her go with glinting eyes, hurt and angry but he says nothing even when his nails are drawing blood from his palm, even when the echo of the door closing quietly with a barely audible click rings in his ears.

"Damnit, Tifa." He whispers angrily to the empty room deserted by her presence. The blood on his hand mixes with the red of his hair as his hands tighten painfully on his scalp.

He seizes the photograph stuck on his wall of the both of them; he tears up the picture vindictively, trying to find some comfort in tearing up her face and smile. He half wishes he could feel some kind of sadistic glee as her face disintegrates into uneven strips right before his eyes. _How could she…?_

His vicious rage turns into a wordless cry of anguish as tears drip onto the collage of ripped paper. He picks up every last bit of paper shakily and puts them into an envelope because he really can't hate her even after she's left him like that and that picture is one of the only remaining memories of her that he has left.

At least a little something that won't leave him like she has.

That night, the harsh lights outside his window bear witness to his tears.

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

She catches a glimpse of him once. He is passing through Sector 7 with two other men in blue suits which identify them clearly as Turks. Her breath fogs the window as she presses her face closer to the glass to get a clearer look at him – _please don't let him come in here, not here not here not here_ – and finds a lump in her throat as she takes him his gaunter features.

There are red scars – or tattoos as it may be – on either side either side of his face starting below the edges of his eyes and curving over the arch of his cheekbones. His crimson flaming hair has grown longer now, although he keeps it short in the front, and ties the thin strip that runs between his shoulders back with a simple tie. A sarcastic smirk tugs at his lips as he retorts to something one of the men said. That place in her heart that she thought died a long time ago flares to life again in pain and she thinks that she's died momentarily when those electric blue eyes stare right back at her through the glass – _ohgodsheknowsI'mherehe'slookingrightatme_ – with such vehemence before they turn away again. After that she moves away from the glass, because it hurts too much to see him again and the memories threaten to engulf her again.

_Coward_, her mind whispers and she finds that she agrees.

A/N: Hm, another one of my experimental pieces of writing in present tense. I've been over it a few times, and am pretty satisfied with it. Comments? Reviews are much appreciated. Now. To come up with some more twisted timelines…

Moozak that helped inspire this piece:  
_Howie Day - Come Lay Down  
Off the Beat - Foolish Games  
My Chemical Romance - The Ghost of You  
Aqualung - Strange and Beautiful  
Disturbed - Violence Fetish  
Finger Eleven - Slow Chemical_

Replies to reviews for _Breathe_:

Nando the RPS King: Whoa, thanks for faving. I've been reading your fic 'Crossing a Burnt Bridge' and am eagerly awaiting more. (I'm such a bum when it comes to reviewing). Thanks for the recommendations, those are really good pieces of writing; I've found that drakonlily's stuff rocks too, and am so caught up in reading her Fighting for A Chance series.

Savvy Savie – Thanks ever so much for reviewing and the fic rec. Yeah, I remember coming across WrexSoul's stuff before, and I found it absolutely amazing. Can't wait to see where the story leads to. smirks I've haunted your fics too, and I'm waiting to see more! (I feel like a leech :x)


End file.
